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E-mail details plan to speed up projects worth less than $10M
The federal government is considering the elimination of environmental assessments on all infrastructure projects of less than $10 million and reducing oversight on bigger projects, a document leaked to the New Democratic party says.
Linda Duncan, the NDP environment critic and an Edmonton MP, cited the document at a news conference yesterday, accusing the federal government of planning a “death blow” to federal environmental protection under the guise of speeding infrastructure projects to stimulate the economy.
“We’re telling the government they can move ahead with shovel-ready projects; just don’t bulldoze our futures in the process,” said Jamie Kneen of Mining Watch Canada, an environmental watchdog.
One measure would exempt projects under $10 million from environmental assessment. Another would eliminate one level of assessment, either federal or provincial, on bigger projects. Ms. Duncan cited waste-disposal sites and water-treatment facilities as examples of infrastructure projects worth less than $10 million.
A veteran of the environment movement before she was elected to Parliament in the fall, Ms. Duncan said the proposals would undo two decades of hard work by the public and private sectors.
The document, an e-mail from within Environment Canada, says these “short-term measures” would be followed by a new “Canadian Environmental Assessment Act,” as soon as March or April, that would focus on major projects and co-ordinate federal-provincial procedures.
Frederic Baril, a spokesman for Environment Minister Jim Prentice, had only a brief comment: “I don’t want to speculate on a bill that has not been tabled in the House of Commons.”
Green party leader Elizabeth May said at a separate news conference that environmental assessments rarely delay projects and even more rarely halt them. She said improvements could be made to the assessment process, “but gutting it under cover of the current economic crisis would be … egregious.”
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